Skip to main content
College of Engineering

Civil Engineering Faculty Receive Best Paper Award at ASEE Annual Conference

Dr. Anna Dollar, President of the ASEE Mechanics Division, presents Dr. Aleksandra Radlinska and Dr. David Dinehart with “Best Paper Award” certificates.

Four Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty members received the "Best Paper Award" from the Mechanics Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) at the organization’s annual conference in July, held this year in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dr. Shawn Gross, Associate Professor; Dr. David Dinehart, Professor; Dr. Joseph Yost P.E., Associate Professor; and Dr. Aleksandra Radlinska, Assistant Professor were recognized for their conference paper entitled "Overarching Problems in Sophomore Mechanics Courses."

The paper focuses on the creation of two four-credit mechanics courses that combine the classical areas of statics, mechanics of solids, and civil engineering materials through a series of integrated overarching problems. Through these problems, students confront a common real-world civil engineering design or analysis challenge that requires them to apply a number of basic concepts from each classical area.

Overarching problems in this course include:

  • Analysis of a decaying steel truss bridge for repair and retrofitting
  • Analysis of a concrete gravity dam
  • Design of a water tower for a developing country
  • Analysis and material selection for a pre-stressed concrete highway bridge
  • Strengthening of wood I-beams using composite materials
  • 3-D analysis of a highway sign structure under combined loading

The College of Engineering's faculty made another strong showing at this year’s ASEE conference, with a total of 15 engineering professors authoring or contributing to 10 conference papers, with topics including interdisciplinary instruction for engineering and business students, student design project-based learning, and STEM outreach (among others).